


Catullo

by somegunemojis



Series: Tender Mercies [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Goodbyes, Grief/Mourning, Leaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:40:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: He'd promised to let her drive him to the airport.
Relationships: Bettino Tahan & Vivienne Sauvettere
Series: Tender Mercies [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893175





	Catullo

6-7 February, 2004 -- Verona, Italia

The last day he spends in Verona, she helps him pack. Everything his family had been is folded into boxes and put away in a storage unit. Photos, old blankets, documents. Any clothes and furniture are given away– he’ll never have any need for them again, and nor will the ghosts that remain in the tiny, empty apartment. The last thing he’d been hesitating to pack away are a pair of pearl earrings, and after he puts the last box up and he turns to Vivienne, he holds the small box out and wills his lower lip to remain still. 

She eyes him, and takes it off his hands. Cracking it open makes her eyes widen, and they dart between him and the earrings rattling around loose in the box, like she’s not quite sure if he’s serious or not, before she gets control of her expression again. He scratches the back of his neck, and stares at the ground between them, unable to look her in the eye. “If you don’t want them, I can–”

Cutting him off, she closes the box with an almost gentle air and interjects, “Bettino, I can’t take these. They’re your mother’s.” 

He shrugs one shoulder. “They’re her favorite pair, yeah. But it’s not like I’m gonna wear them, and uh…” He pauses, and looks at the boxes in the storage unit. They haven’t pulled down the door yet. She follows his gaze, and when she tucks them away he knows he doesn’t have to finish his sentence: I don’t want them to sit in there for eternity. 

It’s easy, to tell himself he doesn’t care if she wears them. He won’t be here to see whether she does or not, after all. She drags him back to her apartment that night, and sits him on the couch. Sirus curls up between them, and they eat a meal of cold fried rice and watch cartoons until the three of them all fall asleep late in the night. It’s less easy to tell himself that he doesn’t care if she wears them or not when she walks out of the bathroom the next morning with his mother’s earrings dangling from her ears, and the sight makes his eyes so hot he has to go and hide out in her kitchen until it’s time to go. 

He gathers his backpack, which contains the few belongings he felt he couldn’t live without. A few books, a change of clothes, a sketchbook and some pencils. No photos. Vivienne buckles Sirus into the backseat, and they take the long drive to the airport in silence. Bettino stares out the windshield, unable to force himself to talk, and his fingers tremble where they’re folded in his lap. Once the car is in park, he slides out of the creaky door, and Vivienne and Sirus follow him inside. 

Bettino has never been on an airplane before. He’s never left Verona.

Backpack shouldered and flight pass clutched nervously in one sweaty palm, he kneels down to wrap Sirus in one last warm embrace, setting his chin atop the boy’s fluffy head and watching the people wander by. He holds him until the kid starts to squirm, and then releases him with a ruffle to his hair that makes him giggle and dart away to hide behind his mother’s legs. Bettino straightens, and before he can open his mouth Vivienne throws her arms around his shoulders and tucks him into a warm, tight embrace. His cheek is pressed to her collarbone, and her perfume is familiar. He's told himself he's never going to see them again, and it had hurt, but now the thought feels real and it burns him from the inside out.

His shoulders shiver, and his eyes start to sting, but he doesn’t cry. He just wraps his arms around her waist and sighs, waiting for her to say her piece. A shuddering sigh rolls out of her eventually, and she whispers, “ _Je t’aime_ , Bettino Tahan. _Bonne chance_.”

The arms around him loosen, and he draws away slowly, jaw clenched. He looks up at the ceiling instead of at her face, because he doesn’t trust himself to maintain his watery smile if he makes eye contact, and he jokes, “I speak as much French as a rock, Viv–” 

She reaches out and pinches his cheek, hard, something almost brittle in her voice when she responds, “Don’t be a prick.” 

The laugh he lets out is half sob, and he carefully pulls her hand from his face with a sigh, turning away. “Alright, alright– there’s some advice I might be able to take. I–” A long pause, and he’s a few steps away when he turns back to them– the last faces he’ll see of the ones he’s loved and left in Verona. “I… I love you too. Both of you. And I’m sorry.” 

He almost doesn’t want to leave, now, and he knows Vivienne can see it. He’s thinking about staying here and trying to survive on his own in the city that swallowed his family, and letting it take him too, just to try and stick around for the few people left in it that he can stand to look in the face. She can see it all on his face, wise beyond her scarce twenty one years, and she picks up Sirus with one last wave, she turns around and she walks back to her car. The message is clear: you’re better off away from here. He hears it loud and clear from a young woman already trapped in a way he doesn't wish to be. 

And so he goes. Whether he looks back or not is between him and God and no one else.


End file.
